Interviewer and Respondent Interactions and Quality Assessments in a Time Diary Study.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Survey Methodology
• Sociology

Background:

• Systematic investigations into the cognitive challenges of time diary completion are scarce.
• Measures of interview quality for time diary studies require further development and validation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze respondent and interviewer behaviors during time diary completion.
• To assess interviewer-provided observations regarding time diary quality.
• To identify specific challenges and conversational dynamics within time diary interviews.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of respondent and interviewer behaviors in a computer-assisted telephone-administered time diary supplement.
• Utilizing interviewer observations on diary quality.
• Applying a 6-item diary quality scale to assess respondent difficulties and interviewer assistance.

Main Results:

• 93%-96% of response sequences yielded codable answers.
• Interviewer assistance with respondent comprehension was infrequent.
• Questions about respondent activities and duration were more challenging than follow-up descriptors.
• Long response sequences did not consistently indicate comprehension issues, often serving conversational flow.
• A 6-item diary quality scale effectively captured respondent difficulties and interviewer comprehension assistance, but not conversational flow.

Conclusions:

• Time diary interviews can yield high rates of codable data with minimal comprehension assistance.
• Specific question types present unique cognitive challenges for respondents.
• The developed 6-item diary quality scale is a valid measure of respondent difficulty and interviewer assistance.
• Further research should refine measures of conversational flow and its impact on data quality.